Some of you (though surely not many) may remember a silly t-shirt idea I had awhile ago.  I started thinking about how I actually wanted to make it yesterday, and Colin and I messed around a little bit trying to make a design that was kinda cool.  We figured we would just make a stencil and spray paint it on a couple shirts, so we headed down to Target and Home Depot in Evanston to buy some t-shirts and some spray paint.  (You can’t buy spray paint in Chicago.)

Anyhow, one thing led to another, and we decided that we should figure out how to silk screen stuff.  We watched a single video on YouTube, and, taking into consideration both how easy the video looked and the fact that every hipster worth his/her salt has been screening shirts for years, we decided to jump onto the bandwagon.

We didn’t really know anything about how to do it, but here are the steps, as I understand them.  Get a screen, put some photo emulsion stuff on it and let it dry.  Print out your design on some acetate.  Put the screen with the design on it in front of a light source.  Wait for the image to burn into the screen, then rinse off the emulsifier.  Then put the screen on your t-shirt, pour some ink on it and squeegee the ink across the image.  Let it dry.  You’ve got yourself a t-shirt.

So that sounds easy right?  Well, I still have no idea, because 30 hours into the project we’re still not even close to starting.  Rather than using the sun as a cheap, free light source, we decided we wanted to make a lightbox.  So we cruised over to Home Depot again, bought some plywood and a 2×4, some screws, some hinges, some flourescent light bulbs, some wire, some plugs, two ballasts, and some plexiglass.  So we haven’t yet made any progress with actually being fashionable, we do now have a totally sweet lightbox.  Check it:

We’ve got four bulbs in the box, with two switches that control how bright it is.  There wasn’t any real reason for that except we thought it would be cool and we don’t really know how bright its supposed to be.  The lid is made of plexiglass and is hinged so we can open it up to change the bulbs when the time comes.  There’s also a little door on the top that will hold the screen in place during exposure.  We’re not really sure if this is ging to do what we need it to do, but we’re stoked.  It works and its awesome.  Also, what the heck is a ballast for?